The Count of Kochi

India's leading performance artist and curator Nikhil Chopra reimagines the upcoming edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale as something evolving and responsive—rather than a finished spectacle.

- BY VIVEK MENEZES PHOTOGRAPHS BY FARHAN HUSSAIN

Quitula and Corjuem in Goa are previously unknown names to the international art world, while the pleasantly ramshackle Aldona village market used to be famous mostly for its flavourful local chillies.

And though there is indeed a fair amount of rampant real estate development scattered around that is transforming India's smallest state, you can still wander through this exceptionally bucolic landscape curving alongside the Mapusa river in North Goa, and never suspect that it's both the laboratory and launching pad for one of the most fascinating artistic developments of the 21st century.

That unlikely happenstance came about because artists Nikhil Chopra and Madhavi Gore chose to transplant themselves here and raise their two children amidst a profusion of friends like family who have together created HH Art Spaces. "An artist-run movement working with live and performance, visual, sonic and installation artists locally, regionally and internationally", that is set up in an otherwise nondescript little building adjacent to the marketplace. In just a single decade, they have gone from putting together what felt like homemade art-inflected house parties to global recognition. And now, at a most crucial juncture for the global scene as well as for the troubled Indian art world, HH will curate the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.